The American stock exchange regulator SEC has sued Elon Musk for it report too late from the purchase of more than 5 percent of Twitter shares in March 2022, more than six months before he took over the platform. International news agencies reported this in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday based on data from the federal court in Washington.
According to the SEC, the late reporting allowed Musk to continue buying shares at artificially low prices. He is said to have been underpaid by at least $150 million.
Shareholders must report within ten calendar days if they acquire an interest of more than 5 percent in a company. Musk only did so eleven days after the deadline, when he had already acquired more than 9 percent of Twitter shares. After this became known, Twitter’s share price shot up by more than 27 percent.
Settlement proposal
Last month, the SEC made a settlement offer in the case, but Musk did not respond to it. The regulator now wants him to be fined and repay the unjustified profits.
According to his lawyer Alex Spiro, Musk has done nothing wrong. “Everyone sees what a sham this is,” he writes in an email to the Reuters news agency.
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